Mozzies Around Australia: Day 43 Broome to Derby and the Gibb River Road

This entry is all about the adventure we had travelling the Gibb River Road – a spectacular and still very untouched part of Australia. We certainly didn’t go to all places, but it was a fantastic experience with challenges along the way including lots and lots of dust. I will try not to write too much but make no apologies if it is a bit long. I hope the photos do it some justice. Russ will add some videos at some stage, but we are limited by the file size we can upload

Starting off Derby End

Broome to Derby

Heading N/NE today about 220k- just a travel day but the Boab trees are becoming numerous and impressive. Some of them must be very old given the size and shape . We stopped just outside of Derby to have a look at “The Prison Boab”. This is now listed as place of significance for the aboriginal people of the area but was also a stopping point for police who used the tree to hold their prisoners on the way to Derby. From there it was out to Birdwood Downs Station, our stopover for the night before we head off on the Gibb River Road. Its about 20k out of town. Craig and Leanne are the new managers and have only been there about 7 weeks. It as been quite run down but now there are big plans to develop the area. They have been living in Toowoomba, so we were able to have a great conversation. sadly, we were one day early and missed out on the Friday night sausage sizzle! Enjoyed the happy hour and chance to talk with others.

Technically if you look at any of the information about the Gibb or any of the tours they do, the Gibb starts at Derby with about 660k of gravel roads to traverse. These roads vary a lot from smooth soil to sharp shaley gravel with lots of little rocks together with a variety of creek crossings some more significant than others, and of course corrugations, some of the jump ups over the ranges have bitumen to help the road trains when they are carting cattle out. We travelled west to east and found the western end a lot better in respect to road conditions. You do hear a lot of horror stories about the road, but I think if you prepare well and take your time generally, I think you would be ok. We were early in the season so I think the road will deteriorate as time goes on. We were early in the season but still saw lots of people travelling in every way you could imagine- vans, caravans, camper trailers, swags , they were all there.

Originally, we planned to take 12 nights, but it ended up being 9 due to the road conditions and as some places decided to stay closed for 2022,

Our trip took us to a lot of the gorges along the way – Windjara, Tunnel Creek, Bell , Manning, Emma and El Questro as well as a station stay at Ellenbrae .

Just a few picture's of the road

Windjana Gorge / Tunnel Creek

Left about 7.30am for Windjara Gorge and the campground near it . Run by Parks WA and has great facilities – hot showers and flushing toilets! Being close to the edge of the park makes it and Tunnel Creek very popular for day tours from Derby or for those who want the Gibb River Experience without doing the whole road.

As it was very hot (38) we set up in the campground and headed off to visit Tunnel Creek, Checked out the Lillimooloora Police ruins on the way. It was originally a homestead but taken over by the police in 1893 due to aboriginal “unrest” in the area

It’s a lot cooler inside the tunnel. It’s a subterranean creek walk so you must be prepared with a flashlight and to walk through water up to hip deep at times. Best to wear runners or good water shoes but again so worth it. Hardly anyone around when we went in but lots of people when we returned including tour buses. Some didn’t look well prepared with nice shorts and good sandals on. Russ did manage to find a quiet side road on the way back for his drone . Surprisingly we have good OPTUS reception at the campground so glad we decided to invest in an Optus prepaid and put it in an old phone.

Once we got back to the campground, the ranger dropped to check our booking and our park pass. Henry was our ranger, and he was a top bloke and a real character. He is of aboriginal heritage and Russ asked him about a tree near us. It’s known as the mother in law tree and the leaves sit back to back. Its called that as in aboriginal culture, you meet your mother in law before you marry and then you are not allowed to talk to them again ever!

The next morning headed off to do the gorge walk which is very close to the campground. – 6am start as its way too hot to do it later. Managed to spot a couple of freshwater crocs and plenty of bird life then visited again late in the afternoon to see the change in colours.

Windjara Gorge Site

Police Ruins

Tunnel Creek

Shower Blocks

Bell Gorge (Silent Grove Campground)

Left Windjana the next morning to head for Bell Gorge which is in the King Leopold ranges (120Km) .

Spectacular scenery through the ranges and Russ has again collected some drone footage (he’s going to be busy putting that together). Silent Grove has the same facilities as Windjana so very comfortable. The gorge itself is about 10 km away and then a rocky 1.5k walk in. I have to say that Bell Gorge is still my favourite. Hope the pictures do it justice. Very hot again so very happy to swim.

Bell Gorge

Manning Gorge

On the way we called into Galvans Gorge , a little oasis tucked away not far from the road and easy to get to . Just another beautiful spot of so many.

It was still quiet people wise at this point but then we moved on to Manning Gorge, for a couple of days which is just near Mt Barnett Roadhouse, the halfway point on the Gibb. Well what a change. There were people everywhere including our first look at the tour groups and the permanent camp sites they have set up. Yet again there were hot showers, flushing toilets and access to non-potable water.

If you needed drinking water, you could just fill up at the tap at the roadhouse. Now when you read the information they talk about bush etiquette- thinking about what you’re doing and the people around you so we had a what would rate as the worst example of this behaviour possible. All of these campgrounds do not have set sites , you just pick a spot and set up. We were at Manning gorge early and set up. Later on a couple of camp trailers pulls up near us under some trees – close but not too close.

We headed off for a swim – when we came back, their mate joined them. The folded-out bed area of his trailer would have been maybe 2m from our awning and he was busy setting up his weber – we could have used it to cook our tea it was so close. To top it all off they both had their generators going to run the fridges next to us . Just a note here to say that this is a huge campground and there were any number of spots close by that their mate could have set up, Long story short – we moved and in the long run it was a good thing as the site we ended up on was very quiet and enjoyable. Just feel like it was done on purpose.

Despite this. we did our good deed as we helped a fellow out who was in desperate need of some Ad Blue . Bought an F150 to travel around in and had no idea about Ad Blue till the warning light came on in his car. Russ gave him a couple of litres to get him on his way ! Despite bad neighbours, we had another wonderful time.

Galvans Gorge

Manning Gorge Crossing

Manning Gorge

Ellenbrae Station

There are a number of stations on the Gibb River Road as it was originally built for them – it was completed in 1956 but of course there has been a few upgrades since then. The stations have taken advantage of the increasing tourist travel and have set up campgrounds to cater for that need. Mt Elizabeth, Mt Hart, Mt House, Charnley River , Gibb River – not all are open. Ellenbrae is the place you stop to have “the world-famous scones” so that’s what we did. Delicious and then stayed on for the night, Again, hot showers, flushing toilets and an excellent camp kitchen. They all have dedicated areas for the tour groups to set up in as well. We lit a fire that night – it was only the second one for the trip. Pretty quiet after Manning Gorge though the road in had a bit of an interesting water crossing – not deep just very rocky.

The road in

World Famous Scones

Pentecost Free camp

Getting to this free camp site you have to cross the Pentecost River and to most, this signifies the end of the Gibb River Road as the bitumen starts there. It was a great feeling of achievement to cross over that day and even better sitting on the bank on the other side. As usual you can’t swim and this time its salt water crocs . Russ did spot a couple in the river. Still hot so Russ very carefully filled up our back 30L container with river water and we used the outside shower to cool down. We were able to sit and watch the traffic moving backwards and forwards across the river which unfortunately included a number of flat back tilt trucks – they returned with caravans, cars, trailers loaded as someone hadn’t had a great time on the road.

It was a great spot to break out the champagne we’d been saving and enjoy watching another beautiful sunset in the Kimberley,

El Questro

And so we reached the other end of the journey where people can pretty easily access the Kimberley experience . El Questro caters for a wide range of people and it is a very busy almost frantic pace compared with some of the spots we had been. It was very nice to have power again and be dust free for a while. We only had the one night but enjoyed the happy hour , the BBQ buffet and the guy singing and playing the didgeridoo. Big change from the last week!

Used the last of our time to visit Zebedee Thermal Springs the next morning. Very warm and so clear.